Reaching new frontiers
This article first appeared on theage.com.au
English is the third language of Greater Western Sydney’s Setanta O’hAilpin.
Born in Ireland to an Irish language enthusiast and a woman from the Fijian island of Rotuma, his first two languages were Irish and Rotuman. (His older brother Sean Og O’hAilpin changed the trajectory of Irish sporting culture when, as a coloured man, he delivered an eloquent address in Irish on accepting the All-Ireland hurling trophy as captain of the victorious Cork team.)
What Setanta sees when he looks at Australia is that around one half of Australians are either born outside Australia or have one parent who was; that rate is increasing daily.
It seems obvious to him that the Australian Football League has to adapt to a rapidly changing Australia. ”If we don’t go with the change, we’re going to get left behind,” he says.
This week, the AFL had a meeting of the players billed as its ”multicultural ambassadors”. The players did interviews with, among others, Chinese, Indian, African, French, Greek and Italian media outlets. Afterwards, I spoke to the four ”ambassadors” referred to as ”the Fijian boys” – O’hAilpin, West Coast’s Nic Naitanui, Melbourne’s David Rodan and Port’s Alipate Carlile. Rodan and Carlile, who are cousins, were born in Fiji. Naitanui was born in Sydney shortly after his parents left Fiji.
Big Setanta has the appearance of a leader in the making. Working in western Sydney, he is at the cutting edge of Australia’s demographic and cultural change. Recently, he was part of a Greater Western Sydney initiative to get together the 100 most talented youngsters in their area for a camp. In the end, they could muster only 18 kids which, as Setanta says, was ”pretty disappointing”. He says his job is not so much attracting young people to the game as persuading their parents to let them play. To quote Setanta: ”We’re that one step behind.”
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